This has been a tricky chapter for me to write and I hope my readers find it realistic enough to accept it and enjoy it. Thank you for the reviews. Keep reading! :)

Chapter 26

Rhett hooked a finger under Scarlett's chin and peered intently into her eyes. He began to chuckle to himself. Scarlett pricked up at once. "What is it? What have I said that you find so amusing?" she demanded.

"Oh,my dear, you are such an innocent child. I thought you would have figured it out by now. But apparently you haven't- If you didn't understand why I came back, then you wouldn't have understood why I left."

Scarlett gazed at him, a little lost for she had always blamed herself for losing Rhett. He had said that he didn't love her anymore and that it had all been her fault. That she had ruined it all. And she had unquestioningly assumed the same. She waited in silence for his next words.

"I left because I was convinced that you were going to divorce me and marry Ashley-"

"But I told you I didn't love him-" cried Scarlett, aghast.

Rhett only chuckled again. "Come, come.. Scarlett, how is that possible? Until the day of Miss. Melly's death, you gave a very good impression that you loved Ashley. I was packing my bags as soon as I left you at Ashley's home. I wanted the divorce to be as undramatic as possible. I hated the Atlanta house anyway and Bonnie was dead. There was nothing to keep me to you. And I knew that you would marry Ashley in a few months time- that's why I said that your lack of good reputation, lack of moral obligation to the Church.. all those piddling little details that would keep anybody down, wouldn't contain you. You were beyond all that and people would hardly think worse of you if you divorced me on Monday and married Ashley on Tuesday-And then suddenly if you rush home, muddied and winded and start declaring your love for me, what was I to think? How was I to believe you? My pride was hurt and I decided to go on with my plans as if nothing had mattered anymore." Rhett shrugged lightly. "I was very surprised when I didn't get a letter for a divorce. I was waiting for it all these five months. And then I found out through your Aunt Pittypat that you had gone away to Tara and buried yourself there for five months with no contact from anyone including Ashley. Only that gave me the some strength to seek you out again."

"But then-", blinked Scarlett, in complete surprise. "Wha- what of all this about my Mother and her being in love with her cousin- I thought-"

"Oh darling, that story helped me understand you better. I never understood why you found Ashley so desirable. Or more to the point, I never understood how Ashley had managed to attract you." Rhett's eyes sparked with sudden animosity that frightened Scarlett. "He was always a threat to me. I was always an outsider to the mystifying, "pure" relationship between you and Ashley. And there was nothing I could do about it."

Scarlett saw Rhett clenching his hands to fists but still didn't understand the venom in his words.

"It was the one thing that puzzled me about you. You may have been right about your intentions in stealing away other beaus. That is, to protect your vanity. But not so with Ashley. You had a strong emotional connection to Ashley- the impression he had made on you since your childhood that made you unashamedly cling to him even after he got married and had a child-" Rhett observed the blush on Scarlett's face and knew that he was right. He continued, "I thought of your parents. Your Mother came from the aristocratic Robillards who were the crème of society. Your Father was more of a self-made man who depended upon his gambling skills more than any intellectual pursuits to acquire his farm and relied largely upon his wife to manage it for him. And I thought perhaps your Father's pride in your Mother's gentility gave you some hints that marital bliss lay in finding the perfect gentleman to be your own beau and husband. If so, then Ashley would definitely fit that mold. But I never suspected of a lack of passion from your Mother because I had never met her. If I had met her only once, I would have understood the actual shallow martial relationship between her and Mr. O Hara. But I couldn't know it. At least not until I heard the story that Mrs. O Hara had formerly fallen in love with the blacksheep of her family- And then I knew that the romantic illusions given to you were flawed."

"Oh Rhett, Ashley always looked like he moved in an inner world that was more beautiful than reality. I wanted him so badly even though I thought half the things he was saying were extremely boring." Now Scarlett remembered. "Rhett, I kept asking him if he loved me and to say so and he would always talk of impractical things. That made me conclude that it was honor that kept him to Melanie. I couldn't see anything attractive or alluring in her. She was so plain. And finally on the day of her death, he spoke plainly for the first time. He said that Melanie was the only dream he ever had. You can imagine how much that broke my heart. I realized that I had been played for a fool and thanked the Heavens that Melly hadn't suspected a thing-"

"You never told me this" cried Rhett, in sudden ferocity. He shook her once and the tremor in his hands frightened her. His dark eyes seemed to snap in mysterious fury."You little fool, you should have told me this before. Instead, you went on babbling about how sorry you were. Your desperation and tears threw me off even more!"

"I didn't know this was important" replied Scarlett, simply.

Rhett shook his head. "Oh, what a fine mess we are!" He shifted Scarlett onto one knee and reached for another cigar. "Then I was a fool to be insanely jealous of Ashley- Scarlett you really don't know anything at all about men's natures. Let me ask you something. During that party at Twelve Oaks, the day when I first met you, you were showing more of your lovely white skin than all the other ladies and if I remember correctly, you were enjoying yourself, weren't you?"

"Well, yes I suppose-" admitted Scarlett, cautiously. She wondered if there would be a baiting question in Rhett's tone. She was going to be careful just the same. She wasn't going to speak unkind things just then and spoil everything.

"Then why should you find it incredible that men would get attracted to your lovely white skin and not to you?! You think that only I am the man who could imagine what you looked like without your shimmy. Well, my dear, I bet every man, including the honorable Ashley Wilkes could! But I would probably be the only man ill-bred enough to admit it openly. By God, you look surprised even now. All right, let me ask you this, forget everything that Ashley Wilkes "told" you at Twelve Oaks when you told him that you loved him. Instead, what did he look like? What did his eyes tell you?"

Scarlett thought for a moment. Frankly she found it quite a strain to think of Ashley, especially his words and face. But apparently it was important to Rhett. After a long pause, she answered,

"He looked like Pa when his pet hunter had broken his leg and he had to shoot him. But I don't see what-"

Rhett seized at her words triumphantly. "Ashley Wilkes looked that way because he had purposely made you keep up your stupid illusion of him so that he could steal those moments with you, relishing your soft white hands, your red lips, your green eyes...you were his pet hunter.. But he never realized that you would actually make a declaration- he never dreamed you would. Then he had to shoot you down with his chivalry. That's why all that his talk about you having a "passion for life" was pure rubbish. The fool admired you for your beauty and nothing else! He knew that you would never make him feel like a God than Miss. Melly did. He knew that after you'd married him, your romantic illusion would fade away after a single night of passion and then you would mock him and bring him to his knees. He knew that! By God, if I were in his place, I would have spoken plainly right then and there. That I didn't love you and you must not see me again. As simple as that! But no! He being the perfect gentlemen-"

Rhett broke away in anger.

"Its this gentlemen breed that made me hate Charleston. Remember one thing, Scarlett.. everyone, whether gentlemen or not, have primitive feelings of anger, jealousy, lust, greed... and gentlemen and gentlewomen won't show it. Always remember that. I understood this very early in life when... when that Charleston girl.. when she ominously rejected my advances on the advice of her gentlemanly brother who kindly nudged her to marry a much more decent man. And this decent man happened to have a healthy bank account and own several acres of land in and around Charleston. Compared to him, I didn't have much money. Naturally I lost. I would have accepted this if she had come right out and said that she was marrying for money. But no, she had to drag it on, talking of honor and duty-"

"-just like Ashley"

"That's right. I fell for it too, my dear and that was the most vulnerable period of my life. I had fallen for a girl who had a cold, calculating mind and hid it all under her gentility. I began to distrust women after that. But I learnt a bigger lesson with Miss. Drayton who I took buggy riding late in the afternoon. I was still pining away for my lost love and this girl did everything to attract me to her. Just to make light of her silly affections, I humored her and took her along. The buggy happened to break down and the horse did run away. And this girl quoted my off-handed comments in just the right combination such that her family grew outraged. They thought I had taken her or something and I defended myself. I said I never did any such thing and that I wouldn't marry that fool for all the money in the world! My father saw this as a fine opportunity to drive me away from his house and all of Charleston."

Rhett ran his hand on the side of Scarlett's face. "We both are outcasts, darling. We both made impulsive mistakes and fell into that little spot in society where culture and tradition were most cruel to us. You married that Charles Hamilton and when he died, you became a young widow. And you had known the man for only two months. Common sense dictates that your mourning should also be only for two months. But instead, everyone mercilessly subjected you to the sorry plight of widowhood. To be ostracized from parties and friends. Until Miss. Drayton, I played a keen game with my Father. He could never catch me on anything because I was so clever in defending my case. I got some money out of him and I played poker when he wasn't around. I could get myself out of scrapes and he was waiting for a chance for me to slip up. That chance came with a woman and I distrusted women even more after that- I understood women to be silly and unpredictable." Rhett took Scarlett's hand and held it to his face.

Rhett sighed now and looked at Scarlett directly in the eye. "And that was when I thought it would be better to know women without the emotional entanglements. I give no excuses for this. I did enjoy going to whore-houses. It's not something that a man has to give a lot of thought to. He just finds an attractive woman and takes her and then walks away as if it had all been a dream." Rhett hurried on, noting the hurt on Scarlett's face. Scarlett herself was surprised. She never would have been hurt before. It seemed to her that she grasped the gravity of his nature only then. "I got to know Belle and a few of the other girls. Even then, I learnt a deeper lesson about the unpredictability in women. I told you about that girl in New Orleans, didn't I? The one that tried to abort her own baby. Scarlett, you don't know what that did to me. I watched her, bleeding all over the floor. Something had gone terribly wrong and before the doctor could get to her, she was dead. I thought all women to be foolish and dangerous. Scarlett, darling, you must know what it is like? To live on one's own wit and skill, without a single penny, without any support from family- I survived because I counted on the evil in others around me. I found it exhilarating. I found I could predict people faster by seeing the evil and hypocrisy in them. And I saw the evil in women too. I knew which women were fool enough to allow themselves to be taken and which ones were greedy enough to demand more money for their services. I too hardened my heart-"